Texas Hold 'Em
by Namaste
Summary: How did House assemble such an odd group for his poker night? Three related ficlets about Dry Cleaner, Guy from the Bus Stop and Tax Accountant.


Author's Note: This fic uses prompts from the HouseficMeta LJ community exercise Household Archeology to write ficlets based on items found under the cushion's in House's couch.

_**Postcard reminder to pick up overdue dry cleaning**_

It was Walt's father who started the business, and his father who created the storeÕs logo proudly declaring: "We Clean Everything."

"Stains," Dad used to say. "WeÕre in a university town filled with drunken students spilling beer, absent minded professors in every lab and people with more money than common sense. If we clean up after them, theyÕll keep coming back."

That was more than twenty years ago, and Dad had been right. There was a 24-hour laundromat in the front of the building and the dry cleaning shop in the back, filled with both his fatherÕs special cleaning concoctions and the standard dry cleaning chemicals.

Walt hadnÕt heard the man come in, just looked up as a dark gray suit coat was tossed onto the counter.

"How do you feel about blood?" the man asked.

Walt glanced up. "Depends on whether itÕs mine."

The man nodded, and gave him a slight smile. "YouÕll do."

The man didnÕt inspect the coat when he picked it up. Walt pulled up the thin film of protective plastic to point out the spot where the stain had been. The man just shrugged. "That only means you can cover up blood," he said. "You haven't proved that you can clean everything yet."

He was back a few weeks later. "Iodine," he said, and plopped down a white dress shirt. He took a pen from WaltÕs stash next to the cash register and filled out the claim slip. "G. House," he wrote, along with a scribbled address and a phone number.

G. House began coming in regularly after that, showing up every couple of weeks.

"Pus," heÕd say one week. "Urine," the next time he came in. "Vomit."

Walt began to wonder if the man was intentionally soiling his clothes just to test him. He'd shout out whatever it was had caused the stain, toss some piece of clothing on the counter -- usually expensive, typically wrinkled -- then glance around the room to see who'd turned to look at him.

Sometimes he'd just study Walt's face, watching for his reaction, his eyes narrowing as Walt picked up the shirt or the blazer and put it in a bag. Walt didn't know what he expected to see.

"Aren't you going to ask?" G. House asked one day.

"Ask what?"

"How I keep getting bodily fluids on my clothes. A normal person would've probably called the cops by now."

Walter turned the claim slip towards G. House, pointed to the work number listed on the paper. "That's a number at the hospital," he pointed out. "I called your office three months ago to leave you a message that your cleaning was ready."

The man took a half step forward, his eyes narrowing again. He finally nodded. "Not bad," he said. "Tell me something else. How do you feel about poker?"

_**A man's gold wedding ring**_

Elizabeth took the house. And the garage. Eddie figured she might as well keep the car. It was an overpriced piece of crap anyway -- one that she had insisted they buy because it "sent the right message."

"There's going to be an opening for a vice president soon," she'd said. "You want to give them the impression that you're going places, don't you?"

Eddie had just shrugged and given in. Six months later, one of the partners was indicted on fraud charges, and the clients stopped calling. Two months after that, Eddie was called in to the boardroom.

"Cost cutting, you understand." The human resources manager told him where to sign, and promised the firm would help him find a new job.

Three months after that, Elizabeth told him he was settling for something that was below his skills when he took the job managing the book store just off campus, then informed him she had no intention of settling.

Eddie didn't know what she expected him to say, and was surprised to find he didn't really care either. So he left. Left her, left the house, left the car. He kept the ring, though he couldn't say why.

He doesn't know where it is now. It disappeared sometime, slipped away without him noticing it.

Back then, when the divorce was still new, he used to twist it on his finger as he sat waiting for the bus, staring down at it, at the perfect circle of gold that told the world a lie, told the world that nothing was broken. It felt loose on his finger, and Eddie wondered if he'd lost weight.

"You should just throw it out. Make a clean break."

Eddie looked up at the other man on the bench. He was leaning forward, a cane held between his knees. Eddie had seen him once or twice before. He always let the man get on the bus first, let him take the first seat.

The man nodded toward Eddie's hands. "Either it's new, and you haven't gotten used to it yet, or it's so familiar, you'd feel naked without it. Judging by your age, I'd go with the second option."

Eddie sat back, didn't answer. When the bus came, he stood up, walked over and got on before the man was even on his feet.

The man wasn't there the next morning, or the morning after that. Eddie had almost forgotten about it until he heard the voice coming from behind him.

"If you were smart, you'd take it to a pawn shop. Then at least you'd get a couple of bucks for your pain and misery."

Eddie glanced back, saw the man standing there, leaning against his cane. He looked away, looked down at his own hands, saw his fingers playing with the golden band again. Felt the way it slid along his finger all the way to the knuckle.

"I don't need the money," he said.

"No?"

"My wife didn't ask for alimony." Eddie wasn't sure why he'd told him that, why he'd admitted the man had been right in the first place.

"What about the house?" The man walked around the bench, stood near the curb staring down the street to the spot where the bus would show up soon.

Eddie shrugged. "She paid me for my share of it."

"So," the man sat next to Eddie, "you've got money in the bank and no responsibilities." He turned to him. "Do you ... play poker by any chance?"

_**Eleven paper clips (six are bent)**_

"OK, this is going to take some time." Bill pulled a handful of papers out of the box, some of them were stapled together, some crumpled into compact wads, a few joined by mangled paperclips that slipped off as soon as he touched them. He tried to put them in a neat pile on his desk, but a few pieces slid out from between his fingers. "We should file for an extension."

"I could have done that myself," the man said. He was sitting back in the chair on the opposite side of Bill's desk, his feet stretched out in front of him, his coat unbuttoned.

Bill looked at the name on the top sheet of paper. "Perhaps you should have, Mr. House," he said. "It's only two days before the filing deadline."

"It's Dr. House," the man said, "and the key word there is 'before.' It's only the thirteenth of April. You've got until midnight on the fifteenth."

"I've also got other clients, Dr. House," Bill said. He didn't even have time to have this conversation, but he hated to turn away business, even business that added to his stress level at tax time.

"I'll give you twenty bucks if you do it."

Bill raised his eyebrows. "I charge eighty bucks. Per hour." He looked in the box again, came across last year's forms. All the boxes on it were checked properly, the figures written in a neat hand in black ink. "Why don't you go to whoever did your taxes last year?"

Dr. House looked away, tapped his cane twice against the floor. "She's not available this year," he said.

Bill looked back in the box and saw the pattern now. There were neat piles and organized receipts for the first few months of last year, then a gap of a month or two with no paperwork, then an irregular series of stained and crumpled forms. He looked at last year's form again, noticed that the box was marked declaring Dr. House as single, but was pretty certain that there had been someone else at home a year ago, someone who wasn't there anymore.

Dr. House reached down into the backpack on the floor next to his chair and pulled out another handful of papers. "And there's these," he said, "medical expenses."

Bill glanced at the new set of papers. There were prescription co-pays -- a lot of them -- and a handful of receipts from a medical supply store. There were bills with Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital's logo on the left corner of each page marking the amount due for radiology, for surgery, for a private hospital room, for rehabilitation services.

Bill closed his eyes, took a deep breath.

He knew he shouldn't do it. He didn't have enough time as it was, but then he opened his eyes and looked across his desk, watched as Dr. House slid a bottle out of his pocket, shook out a pill and swallowed it dry. Saw the way he reached down and used one hand to support his right leg as he shifted in the seat, then gently massaged the muscle above his knee. He found himself staring at the cane Dr. House held in one hand -- the way his fingers curved over the dark wood of the handle, the way his knuckles whitened as he gripped it tightly.

Bill spread the paperwork across his desk and reached for a new form, telling himself he was an idiot even as he picked up his pen. When he looked up, he thought he glimpsed a slight smile on Dr. House's face, then it was gone.

"You'll have to pay overtime for my staff," Bill said.

"That doesn't sound cheap," Dr. House said. He tapped his cane on the floor again.

"They're not cheap, but they're good."

"I don't suppose you have a discount for new customers?"

Bill just shook his head.

"Maybe we can work something else out," Dr. House said, "a way I can recoup some of my expenses."

Bill looked up at him, put the pen down. "I don't think ..."

"It'll be fun, trust me." Dr. House smiled. "After all, you do play poker, don't you?"


End file.
